Chapter 13

The nature and value of prayer, and how the heart should be recollected within itself

Besides this, since we are incapable of ourselves for this and for any other good action whatsoever, and since we can of
ourselves offer nothing to the Lord God (from whom all good things come) which is not his already, with this one exception,
as he has deigned to show us both by his own blessed mouth as well as by his example, that we should turn to him in all circumstances
and occasions as guilty, wretched, poor, beggarly, weak, helpless, subject servants and sons. And
that we should beseech him and lay before him with complete confidence the dangers that are besetting us on all sides,
completely grief-stricken in ourselves, in humble prostration of mind, in fear and love, and with recollected, composed, mature,
true and naked, shamefaced affection, with great yearning and determination, and in groaning of heart and sincerity of mind.
Thus we commit and offer ourselves up to him freely, securely and nakedly, fully and in everything that is ours, holding
nothing back to ourselves, in such a complete and final way, that the same is fulfilled in us as in our blessed father
Isaac, who speaks of this very type of prayer, saying, Then we shall be one in God, and the Lord God will be all in all and alone in us when his own perfect love, with which he
first loved us, will have become the disposition of our own hearts too. This will come about when all our love, all our desire, all our concern, all our efforts, in fact everything we think,
everything we see, speak and even hope will be God, and that unity which now is of the Father with the Son, and of the
Son with the Father, will be poured into our own heart and mind as well, in such a way that just as he loves us with sincere
and indissoluble love we too will be joined to him with eternal and inseparable affection. In other words we shall be united
with him in such a way that whatever we hope, and whatever we say or pray will be God. This therefore should be the aim, this
the
concern and goal of a spiritual man - to be worthy to possess the image of future bliss in this corruptible body, and in
a certain measure experience in advance how the foretaste of that heavenly bliss, eternal life and glory begins in this world.
This, as I say, is the goal of all perfection, that his purified mind should be daily raised up from all bodily objects to
spiritual things until all his mental activity and all his heart’s desire become one unbroken prayer. So the mind must abandon
the dregs of earth and press on towards to God, on whom alone should be fixed the desire of a spiritual man, for whom the
least separation from that summum bonum is to be considered a living death and dreadful loss. Then, when the requisite peace
has been established in his mind, when it is free from attachment to any carnal passion, and clings firmly in intention to
that one supreme good, the Apostle’s sayings are fulfilled, Pray without
ceasing, (1 Thessalonians 5.17) and, Pray in every place lifting up pure hands without anger or dispute. (1 Timothy 2.8) For when the power of the mind is absorbed in this purity, so to speak, and is transformed from an earthly nature into the
spiritual or angelic likeness, whatever it receives into itself, whatever it is occupied with, whatever it is doing, it will
be pure and
sincere prayer. In this way, if you continue all the time in the way we have described from the beginning, it will become
as easy and clear for you to remain in contemplation in your inward and recollected state, as to live in the natural state.